Listened to a television program on the ABC last night (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) which covered some of the themes being covered at the 2008 World Poultry Congress. There are some interesting parallels in the issues that are being addressed in poultry and aquaculture - as aquaculture seeks to increase its scale and intensity of production.
One of the keynote speakers at the Conference, Professor David Farrell from the University of Queensland was interviewed about the key factors that have allowed the poultry industry to intensify its production so successfully. Professor Farrell identifies the following factors as key contributors:
- technology
- genetics
- feed
- management
- disease control
At the 4.20 minute mark in the video (see the link below) Professor Farrell reviews the conversion efficiency of the three major livestock industries. He states the feed conversion ratios as:
- Poultry - 1.7:1
- Pigs - 2.2:1
- Cattle - 7:1
This makes the peak feed conversion ratios in aquaculture of 0.8:1 look very good.
Can anyone help by pointing out the latest data on feed conversion ratio in aquaculture both in the lab and in the farm setting?
The video of the interview with Professor Farrell is available here.
The World Poultry Congress site is here.
The global aquaculture industry currently accounts for over 45% of all seafood consumed.
That figure has been projected to increase to 75% over the next 20 years. While the industry is truly on a dynamic growth path, it is nonetheless dangerously dependent upon fishmeal as a key protein constituent in fish and shrimp diets.
The aquaculture industry is not alone however, as cattle, poultry, pig and other intensive forms of animal production use fishmeal as a primary protein source in their diets. Currently ten countries produce 80% of all world fishmeal supply, and three of those suppliers are net importers of product, thereby reducing supply, not increasing it. These include the U.S. and China.
Fishmeal production reached heights of 4.4 million tonnes in 2002 and was consistently above 3.3 million tonnes between 2001 and 2005. A report providing the details may be reviewed here.
Production of fishmeal also decreased 20% in 2006, and prices rose from USD $750/metric tonne to over USD $1400/metric tonne. In 2007 it failed to exceed 2000 tonnes. Is this just a blip or is the downturn in production aligned with other trends? U.S. growers experienced four feed price increases within a 16 month period.
A staggering 25% of all world fish production goes into the low value added pursuits of fishmeal and fish oil production!
Due to the fact that the regions responsible for the majority of world supply are isolated geographically from major markets, every tonne of fishmeal travels an average of 5000 km before it reaches the end user. Obviously, particularly in the face of the present oil crisis, this has enormous economic implications for global intensive animal protein production markets.
As far as aquaculture is concerned, clearly the future demand for fishmeal is on a rapidly increasing track. With world fish stocks, and baitfish stocks in particular, in decline, the stage is set for a bottleneck that could severely limit industry growth.
In order to head off such a bottleneck, the global aquaculture industry must eliminate its dependence upon fishmeal (and fish oil) and develop a portfolio of sustainable dietary protein sources.
The very industry that has been called upon to bridge the gap between demand and wild supply is now dependent upon wild stocks of fish for the vast majority of its protein source .
In order to expand and succeed in the future, the industry must develop its independence from fishmeal and wild sources of feed.
As a theme, the Finfish blog has carried an array of postings about using ‘lower forms’ of life as dietary inputs. Diet ingredients must be produced from sustainable sources to allow the unhindered expansion of global seafood production.
What are other ways in which this problem might be countered? Lets think outside the square on this one!
Key criteria to consider as innovation drivers are as follows:
- maximise capacity for local production
- maximise capacity to meet volume requirements
- minimise cost of production
- maximise ease of handling feed input
- minimise flavour impact
What are the other criteria we must include?
Meeting the challenge of filling the fish production gap will require that aquaculture adopt ‘intensive’ production methodologies. Several industries have managed to successfully achieve this transition - one of these is the chicken meat industry. Although many of the issues that will need to be faced by the aquaculture industry will be different from chicken meat industry, there will also many that are a similar.
What is certain is that if we are to fill the fish production gap, the aquaculture industry will need to make the transition to chicken meat industry productivity and quality benchmarks in 10% of the time that the chicken industry took to achieve them. This means that aquaculture will need to have achieved the chicken meat industry metrics inside five years.
On a global scale the annual production of broiler meat is 40.5 million metric tonnes derived from approximately 48 billion birds. This volume of production is close to the projected 2030 fish production gap.
Australia’s chicken meat industry has grown from a scattered and informal adjunct to egg production into a major industry with assets in excess of $6 billion, and a turnover of $3.6 billion over the past fifty years. The industry generates 120,000 jobs through the economy, this figure including nearly 40,000 people in direct employment by the industry. Chicken meat consumption per capita in 2002/03 was 33.8kg rising to 36.5kg in 2005/06. It is poised to replace beef as the most popular meat of Australian consumers. Consumption has increased 27% over the past decade, and is expected to continue increasing at between 1-5% pa for at least the next five years. Production in 2002/03 was around 650,000 tonnes of chicken meat from 420 million birds processed. Approximately 98% of the total output goes to the domestic market. The relative price of chicken meat has fallen consistently over the past few decades, due largely to automation of processing, genetic improvements in the birds used and enlightened on-farm feeding and management practices.
Information on the current development priorities for the chicken meat industry plan can be reviewed here.
